Hi, Everyone

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Hi, Everyone,

Many thanks, as always, for dropping by.

Sorry, no poem today, although I am working on one. Unfortunately, a worsening ear infection means that I am not feeling up to doing much at all at the moment, but hopefully it will soon pass.

Several readers have asked how I cope with the prostate cancer. Well, I just try to take each day as it comes and keep my fingers crossed.

I am 75 years-old, have been treated with hormone therapy (zoladex) since I was first diagnosed in 2011 and have injections about every 18 months. Although successful in preventing the cancer from becoming aggressive, the zoladex affects my memory; in the early years, I feared I was a candidate for dementia, but my consultant assured me it was the hormone therapy. I also get scared, even panicky sometimes, and this is not the kind of person I am. However, I’ve learned to live with these side-effects and do my best not to let them send me into free fall.

Diet has helped. I stay clear of dairy and meat products now. Soya milk and other soya related foods seem to help energise my system; it may not work for everyone, but it works for me; if the proof of any the pudding is in the eating, well, here I am, 10 years on, not quite the man I used to be, but still alive to tell the tale.

A reader has emailed to say he lives alone (as I do) and has just been diagnosed with prostate cancer.  It is scary, I know, but a positive thinking mindset helps… a LOT. Family and friends are likely to rally round and offer support, so let them and take strength from it; some people bury their heads in the sand and that helps no one.

Scary, too, is the coronavirus pandemic… for everyone. It is ok to be scared, we can but do our best to rise above our fears and not let them get the better of us. Easier said than done, I know, but it’s not as if we have much choice. Some of you will have lost loved-ones, friends and workmates to the coronavirus, and that is always a tragedy, but as I have said many times before, love never dies, buts remains a life-force within us... if we let it.

Take care, everyone, stay safe and keep as well as any of us can expect to be during a pandemic.

Back soon, I hope. Meanwhile, feel free to explore the poetry archives, accessible on the righthand side of any blog page, Oh, and for the reader who had some kind words for my fiction blog... many thanks, much appreciated.

Hugs,

Roger

Waking Up to Life

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

One of the (many) problems of living with prostate cancer and being treated with hormone therapy (Zoladex) is that its success depends on keeping testosterone at bay. 

Most of the time, I have no sexual urges so am relatively content. Every so often, though, a rush of testosterone creates the urges while failing to address bodily functions anywhere near adequately. (In other words, I can barely get an erection, if at all!) Being sensually rather than sexually active is even more frustrating than being without a regular partner, given that there are usually brief encounters to be had if you know where to go. Knowing where to go, but well aware it would be a complete waste of time, however, now that can be soul-destroying. 

Oh well, I just have to keep looking on the bright side of life and be thankful that (75 soon) I am still here to tell the sorry tale. Stay positive, I am always telling people so I guess I need to practise what I preach! (I do, mostly, but now and again I allow myself to lapse into whinge-mode…)

Not in any wasteland, though, not me, not any more. There is more to life than wanting what we can't have; we just have to find ways of making the most of what is available to us and, no, that doesn't mean having to settle for less. The human condition is incredibly adaptable to its circumstances, just as the human spirit can rise above even the worst life throws at us ... if we let it.

What's done is done, and gone. No one gets their time over again, neither the good parts nor the bad. What we can do, though, each and every one of us, regardless of any socio-cultural-religious or other forces working for or against us, is start looking ahead, resolve to make the most not only of what we have, but who we are in a Here-and-Now that has the potential to let us play not only as constructive a role in our past-present-future as any personae we may have previously adopted, but all the more so for a positive thinking mindset.

WAKING UP TO LIFE

Overslept,
dreams preventing deep sleeping,
or eyes opening,
taking m places I'd rather not go
but can't stay away
because they are an integral part
of my history

Overslept,
revisiting brief, intimate encounters
(high hopes dashed)
that promised everything, but left me
stranded in a wasteland,
worse off than ever for misreading
not seizing the day

Overslept,
cuddling up to a pillow, surrendering
to the surreal,
long enough to leave all emotion spent
on fuelling imagination 
into meeting more pro-active demands,
body stalling 

Waking up,
faces on the ceiling floating wry smiles
for a sleepy-head
sick of taking each day as it comes, only
to be left stranded
on some lonely wasteland without a clue,
body on stand-by

Getting up,
resolving not to include a dead yesterday
in my calculations,
no more truck with illusion and delusion
needs must get real, start
exchanging negatives for positives by way
of mind-body-spirit 

Starting over,
(finally) getting to grips with life as it is,
people as they are,
learning to laugh again (even at myself)
finding silver linings
wherever I look, no going by any text book, 
and all the better for it

Copyright R. N. Taber 2018; 2020

(Note: This poem also appears on both poetry blogs today given that issues it raises  may well affect us at some point in our lives, regardless of  ethnicity, culture, gender, sexual persuasion or, yes, growing old...] RNT

Poetry Live

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

[Update) March 25, 2017: Not everyone who visits the blog also visits my Google Plus page where I have been posting links to posts/poems from both blogs on a daily basis. A reader has  emailed to say he had heard about the poetry reading but had no details. Sorry about that! He also said he would still like to make a donation to Prostate Cancer UK as his late father had prostate cancer, and he is having tests for it himself. Sadly, cancer does not discriminate! Good luck, Ian, and stay positive!

If there is anyone else out there who enjoys my poems on the blog/s, please help if you possibly can. My page will remain a while longer; every little helps its team in supporting men with prostate cancer, gay and straight alike - and their families - across the UK

Well, the poetry evening is well done and dusted. Only about a dozen people came, but we enjoyed ourselves. (There's nothing quite like live poetry.) Everyone seemed to appreciate my choice of poems and we all got on well during a 30 mins refreshment break which was really nice as some people had only just met for the first time. If the arts are meant firstly to entertain and secondly to offer food for thought, feedback suggests the evening was a success on both counts.

For me, personally, it was hard work involving weeks of preparation but a labour of love so I'm glad I went ahead with it despite being a bag of nerves...which, thankfully, steadied once I got started. This year marks sixty years of getting my poetry into print, given that my first published poem appeared in my school magazine summer 1957. I have also been living with prostate cancer for six years (treated with hormone therapy).

I've recorded the poetry reading although I daresay some editing of the resulting voice file will be necessary.  (I hate the sound of my own voice so will leave that to my friend Graham who shoots and edits the videos on my You Tube channel.) Hopefully, blog readers will (eventually) be able to link to it.]

.....................................................

I did not have the confidence to read in public for years. However, after a few years of occasionally performing Open Mics at Farrago Poetry evenings in London, I found the self-confidence to accept invitations to give readings around the UK (2003-2014). Only weeks after a reading in 2014, I had a bad fall and have spent much of the last two years learning to walk again. I can get out and about quite well now with the aid of a walking stick, for which I am truly thankful as my left ankle had sustained a complicated fracture and I was warned I might never walk again. Oh, but I love walking and am stubborn enough to defy any harbingers of doom. Even so, I did not expect to give another poetry reading.

Now, this first poem appeared in Visions of the Mind, Spotlight Poets (Forward Press) in 1998 and subsequently in my first collection,  Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001. It is an early piece, written in the summer of 1976 during which I gave an impromptu reading of it in Trafalgar Square to a friend (and several appreciative passers-by who paused to listen.)

POETRY LIVE

Words 

to music, out of words on

sun rising in the eyes 

of that ragged-eared mongrel

at George’s door
tongue lolling, nostrils a-smoke,

smelling us out

Words

to music, out of words on
letting carnival hot dogs
substitute for garden scents,
make easier the stink 

of various matter-of-fact slop-outs

in the gutter

Words

out of choc-smeared mouths
in Bank Holiday sunshine;
kids in glad rags spilling
on the streets like bin bags;
shirtsleeves copper seems anxious
to get chatty 

Poetry

Copyright R. N. Taber 1998; 2017

I never dreamt that 30+ years on I would be reading a selection of my poems in Trafalgar Square, this time to a global audience via web stream as my contribution to Sir Antony Gormley’s ‘live’ sculpture project, One and Other (2009) sponsored by Sky Arts. To view, click on:
http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100223121732/oneandother.co.uk/participants/Roger_T    [NB: Sept 19, 2019: Today, the British Library confirmed that the link blow to the 4th plinth reading in 1999 is no longer available as the video is incompatible with an updated IT system. However, I am assured that the video still exists, and B L hope to make it available to the public again one day. Fingers crossed, and watch this space.] RNT

Going with Nature

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

[Update Jan 5, 2017 Since writing this poem, the title has taken on a new (additional) meaning for me as I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in February 2011. retired from giving poetry readings around the UK a few months before a bad fall 20 2014 which resulted in my having to learn to walk again.Nature has been on my side and now I am able to get out and about quite well with my walking stick. Living with prostate cancer poses a not dissimilar challenge.Friends are very supportive but some men (gay and straight alike) with whom I have chatted at the Cancer Centre have no one and rely on Prostate Cancer UK for help and support. So I have decide to give a poetry reading (a mixture of gay-interest and general poems on various subjects) on National Poetry Day (March 21, 2017) to try and raise funds for Prostate Cancer UK. If enjoy my blog/s and happen to be in London or nearby, you are more than welcome to come along' should you also feel able to donate as much or as little as you can afford in a very worthy cause via my JustGiving page, so much the better. Cheers!]

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Roger-Taber

Meanwhile...

Today’s poem has not appeared on the blog since 2009 and I am posting it again today especially for those young people who write in from time to time expressing doubts and dismay about ‘coming out’ to family and friends. It is never easy, and must be a person's own decision no one else's. Yes, I encourage people to come out, but I respect the fact that some people can't or won't for whatever reason. Sadly, there are still far too many LGBT-unfriendly environments where socio-cultural-religious conventions remain in force.

Many if not most gay people who dread coming out are pleasantly surprised to discover that friends and family have already guessed they are gay and certainly think no less of them for it. Sadly, there are always exceptions, but most towns and cities have LGBT support groups now that can be located o the Internet and are well worth a visit.

It strikes me that we live in too much of a one-upmanship society. It is bad enough in adult life but young people especially should not feel they are in competition with anyone, but feel free to go their own way, cherish and follow their own aspirations, including sexuality, no matter that some people might try to put them down for it.

There are far too many small-minded people about who seem to think someone is a nobody unless he or she is somebody and you can only be somebody by wearing the right clothes, being seen at the right places and being part of what is invariably a rubbish ‘in-crowd’ or (worse still) a street gang.

As my dear late mother once said, the best thing you can do for yourself is BE yourself.

This poem is a villanelle.

GOING WITH NATURE

No point in competing with peers
(it doesn’t matter what others say)
where a sandman has other ideas

They will but shed crocodile tears
each time we seem to lose our way;
no point in competing with peers

We know to face up to our fears
and learn to mould them to our clay
where a sandman has other ideas

By whatever hopes a parent steers,
each child needs to find its own way;
no point in competing with peers

An early mist, so quickly it clears,
fair Apollo left free to carry the day
where a sandman has other ideas

Above all things, nature endures,
keeping faith with us, straight or gay;
no point in competing with peers
where a sandman has other ideas

Copyright R. N. Taber 2009

A Ballad for Spring

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

I must thank all those readers who have been in touch to ask after my health. I am fine, just tired.

The phrase ‘prostate cancer’ strikes fear into the hearts of many men. It is a fact, however, that more men live with it than die from it. Even so, if treatment is advisable, as in my case...Well, no treatment is without risk. I will just have to take each day as it comes.

Fear not, dear readers, there is absolutely no likelihood of the Grim Reaper having his wicked way with me for a few years yet.

I really am very positive about the cancer, but can’t deny it gets a little scary sometimes. Right now, writing up the blog, I feel fine. (Yes, I do, really!) I expect to have good days and bad days, but remain determined that the latter shall be kept to a minimum. Physically, I am in good shape and have no pain whatsoever. The battle is more of a mental one; living with the knowledge that the cancer is there inside me, and knowing the treatment will leave me impotent. However, regarding the latter, I am assured there is an 80% chance that something like Viagra or Tadalafil will do the trick should I ever need it. It shouldn’t bother me since, at 65 years-old, I haven’t been sexually active for a while. Even so, I guess it has to do with my manhood feeling threatened.

Mostly, I rise above any feelings of inadequacy and threat, but every so often they strike and refuse to go away. Yet, a long, leisurely stroll on lovely Hampstead Heath, barely fifteen minutes walk from my front door, invariably restores me to positive thinking mode. As I live alone now, I am also very fortunate to have some very good friends who help me keep a sense of perspective. It is always good to talk things over with friends when troubled.

Having (eventually) decided against radiotherapy and opted for hormone therapy instead, I will have to live with prostate cancer for the rest of my life, all the more reason for...

Carpe Diem.

Besides...

How can I worry about prostate cancer when there is a beautiful spring to enjoy? Oh, and I mean to enjoy every splendid minute of it.

[Update (August 2013): Spring may be a while coming yet, but as so few of my gay-interest poems get published apart from in my own collections, I thought readers might be interested to know that this one has recently been accepted for publication by Forward Poetry in its forthcoming anthology, Spirit of Spring.]

A BALLAD FOR SPRING

We carved our initials on a tree
one beautiful spring day,
asked a bird to tell the world
we’re proud and gay

It was a swallow told its chicks,
as in the nest they lay,
don’t be afraid to sing the words,
proud and gay

We made love beneath that tree
one beautiful summer’s day
while swallows sang love songs,
proud and gay

Autumn sent the swallows south,
and my lover went away;
I could hear a north wind curse us,
proud and gay

Winter, it melted away into spring,
as poets like to say,
and the tree read love poems to me,
proud and gay

We put our lips to initials on the tree
one beautiful spring day,
thanks for a swallow’s reuniting us,
proud and gay

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011